When I was a kid, we lived in Royal Oak, Michigan. On our street was a lovely family called the Biolchinis. They have 4 boys. (Only one of whom, I was happy to learn, is in college already, because I used to babysit them occasionally.) We moved when I was 13, and the Biolchinis moved as well, but for the past, oh, 15 years or so, my mom has gotten together once a month for cards with ladies from that neighborhood. Every Christmas, they do a cookie exchange. Every Christmas, Julie Biolchini makes these chocolate crinkle cookies. Every Christmas, my sister and I fight over the Chocolate Crinkles. To me, they are the perfect cookie. I used to hoard them when my mom would come home from the cookie exchange, and I referenced them recently in a post about brittle.

JULIE BIOLCHINI SENT ME A BATCH OF CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES IN THE MAIL. BECAUSE SHE IS COMPLETELY AWESOME.

I ate them all. Maybe Dom snuck one. I knew I should have counted them. Chocolate Crinkles are melty and fantastic, like brownies but crunchier and more tender. They’re also rolled in powdered sugar and they’re so, so attractive. My dad says that the best cookie in the world is Sue’s mom’s Buffalo Chip cookies, and they are REALLY GOOD, but Chocolate Crinkles are my favorite.

Lengthy sidenote – Sue stayed with us a lot the summer after senior year of high school, because her parents had moved to Indiana and she and I decided that she would live with us for the summer. Her mom used to regularly send bags full of Buffalo Chip cookies back to my parents’ with her and my dad would – I’m not kidding – hide them so no one else could eat them. I once saw him receive a bag of the cookies from Susan, go fetch a batch of cookies my sister had made, throw them (with considerable emphasis) into the garbage, and exclaim “Finally I don’t have to eat this crap anymore, the real cookies are here!”.

Anyway, Chocolate Crinkles are awesome. Here’s the recipe.

Julie Biolchini’s Chocolate Crinkles

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 squares unsweetened chocolate (Melted and cooled slightly. Do this in the microwave, just watch it closely and take it out to stir it around every 20-30 seconds. You don’t want it to be so hot that it cooks the eggs when you mix those in, so if you can touch it comfortably with your finger, you’re fine.)

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

powdered sugar for rolling

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix oil, melted chocolate and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and mix. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. (Julie does this all in her standing mixer.) Stir in chocolate chips and chill four hours or longer.

Roll into 1 inch balls, and roll in powdered sugar. (Dough will be pretty sticky.) Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Watch the first batch for right bake time, take them out when they still look kind of raw in the cracks. Makes 5-6 dozen.